How This Unusual Season Redefined the Typical Coach of the Year Mould.

Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It often serves as a type of apology. We regret we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround receives the award. In reality, it creates an annual argument about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or just the biggest surprise.

Yet this year's competition is profoundly unique. The list of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference champions falling away and recent underperformers improving together. Under an normal year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in this chaotic and entertaining season, he's up against several other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the projected vote should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an attack designed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a creative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings weren't available, he's been capable to conjure magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the building with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a ordinary year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. But this isn't a normal year!

The area where his case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. However he falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has mastered the off-field aspects, which was not a guarantee following his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback caused the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Rather, it defined it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has regressed since that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still